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''Living Ornaments '81'' is a
live album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...
recording of a concert on 28 April 1981 by British musician
Gary Numan Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the New wave music, new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two st ...
. It was released as a
double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...
CD in 1998. The 28 April 1981 show was the third and last of Numan's 'Farewell Concerts' staged at
Wembley Arena Wembley Arena () (originally the Empire Pool, currently known as OVO Energy, OVO Arena Wembley for sponsorship reasons) is an indoor arena next to Wembley Stadium in Wembley, Greater London, England. The 12,500-seat facility is Greater Lond ...
(although Numan would return to performing live shows the following year). The concert was filmed and released on VHS as ''Micromusic'' in April 1982; ''Living Ornaments '81'' is essentially an audio release of the video, albeit one released almost 16 years later. In 1981, Beggars Banquet Records released edited versions of two Numan concerts as the live albums '' Living Ornaments '79'' and '' Living Ornaments '80''. In 1998, an expanded version of ''Living Ornaments '79'', featuring the entire concert, was released on CD. An expanded CD version of '' Living Ornaments '80'' album had been planned for release as well, but tapes of the full concert had been lost. ''Living Ornaments '81'' – hitherto unreleased as an official live album – was therefore released on CD instead. (In 2004, a mixing console recording of a complete concert from Numan's 1980 tour was discovered and deemed to be of sufficient quality to release commercially, enabling an expanded CD re-release of ''Living Ornaments '80'' in 2005.)


Track listing


Disc one

# "Intro/ This Wreckage" – 7:40 # "Remind Me to Smile" – 3:22 # "Metal" – 3:14 # "Me! I Disconnect from You" – 3:03 # "
Complex Complex commonly refers to: * Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe ** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
" – 3:10 # "The Aircrash Bureau" – 5:24 # "Airlane" – 3:24 # "M.E." – 4:32 # "Everyday I Die" – 4:38 # "Films" – 5:47 # "Remember I Was Vapour" – 4:34 # " Trois Gymnopedies (First Movement)" – 3:04 # "Conversation" – 7:39


Disc two

# " She's Got Claws" – 4:51 # "
Cars A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...
" – 3:39 # "I Dream of Wires" – 4:37 # "I'm an Agent" – 3:57 # "The Joy Circuit" – 5:56 # " I Die: You Die" – 3:43 # "Cry the Clock Said" – 5:26 # "Tracks" – 2:19 # " Down in the Park" – 5:59 # "My Shadow in Vain" – 2:38 # "Please Push No More" – 5:29 # " Are 'Friends' Electric?" – 5:40 # " We Are Glass/Outro" – 7:43 Although the third track on disc one is listed as "Metal" (a song from Numan's 1979 album '' The Pleasure Principle''), its actual lyrics identify it as the song "Moral", a reworking of "Metal" which was recorded for Numan's then-forthcoming 1981 album ''
Dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
''. ''Living Ornaments '81'' also features live versions of "She's Got Claws" and "Cry the Clock Said" that pre-date the studio recordings as featured in ''Dance''. Numan can be heard introducing "She's Got Claws" as his "new single;" the song was released as a single four months after the concert. The song "Conversation", included at the end of disc one, is a bonus track. It was played at the first two Wembley shows but replaced by "Complex" for the 28 April show. The version included on the ''Living Ornaments '81'' set is from the 26 April show, and is a mono mix of noticeably poor audio quality. The instrumental title track of Numan's 1979 album ''
Replicas A replica is an exact (usually 1:1 in scale) copy or remake of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without ...
'' is used a total of three times throughout the concert: once as the intro (similarly to ''Living Ornaments '79''), once as the outro; and as a pseudo-intro to the track "Films." The theme can therefore be heard on disc 1 tracks 1 and 10, and disc 2 track 13. Despite the extensive use of its theme, the actual track of "Replicas" is not listed, nor is it featured in its entirety in this recording.


''Micromusic'' VHS/DVD

Originally released in April 1982, the ''Micromusic'' video cassette features the same listing as the subsequent ''Living Ornaments '81'' CD, with the exception of the aforementioned bonus track "Conversation." Soon after its video release, the show was broadcast on British television, albeit in an edited, highlights-only version featuring the following tracks: "Intro," "This Wreckage," "Airlane," "M.E.," "She's Got Claws," "Cars," "I'm an Agent," "The Joy Circuit," "I Die: You Die," "Tracks," "Down in the Park," "Are "Friends" Electric?," "We Are Glass," and "Outro." Both the full version and the edited version of the concert have been released on VHS.Paul Goodwin (2004). ''Electric Pioneer: An Armchair Guide To Gary Numan'': p.220. The full version of ''Micromusic'' was released on DVD in April 2010, with an hour-long 2006 interview with Numan as a bonus feature.


Notes

{{Authority control 1998 live albums Gary Numan live albums 1982 live albums 1982 video albums Gary Numan video albums 1990s live video albums Beggars Banquet Records live albums Beggars Banquet Records video albums